A Birth Story–My Sequel: Part 1

Hello, there. Or, to many, I should say Hello, Again. Welcome. Or Welcome Back. Right now, you can find me mostly over at 511 Ever After, but I’ve decided to return for a post that could only be written here; here where my mommy roots are anchored in deep, in stories of joy, enchantment, confusion, pain….my stories from the trenches. So much is different now. First off, I now have two kids. It’s funny; I wrote this post literally a day shy of two years ago. I was grappling with the idea of a second child. And now, spoiler alert!, he’s here. And he’s just as magical as my first baby was, but the experience has been totally different, starting with the birth. If you want to start from the beginning with many of my past stories, including my birth stories, in all 5 parts, you may. Or you can just start here, at the sequel. So, like any good story, let’s start at the beginning. It was a cold morning in March and my husband was out to brunch with my dad and some of their friends. And I was a week late. So I took an old HPT that I had in my linen closet, peed on it, and two lines appeared in 20 seconds. And my daughter was in the bathroom with me. And I said, “Holy shit, I’m pregnant.” And she said “I’m Cinderella.”I was stunned. When trying for our first, we tried. This pregnancy happened immediately. I hadn’t expected it to happen so fast, as we had barely unpacked the boxes in our new house. But I was excited. Thrilled. And I was even more enthused when I had my daughter hand my husband the positive pee stick upon his return home from brunch. Our little family was growing and my heart was bursting. And a lot happened in the 9 months following, and perhaps I’ll go into them some day on here, and perhaps I will not, but for now, I shall cut to the chase. The birth story. In parts. For the last two months of my pregnancy, I was experiencing painful Braxton Hicks contractions; so strong that these moments of uncomfortable tightness would show up strongly on the monitor. I went into labor and delivery 4 times for “false alarms”, as the contractions were present, but not doing anything to induce real labor. I should mention that because of my previous C-Section with my daughter, I was scheduled for a repeat surgery on October 28, 2013. Not only was this a routine repeat, but my little boy, in all his enormous glory, was lying in the transverse position, which means instead of being head down (or, in breach cases, head up) he was lying smack across my stomach. I looked like I was smuggling a watermelon under my shirt. It was ridiculous looking. I was all belly and my belly had a belly. I had mixed feelings leading up to my c-section. I was relieved, in some ways, to have the luxury of planning my second child’s birth; to schedule a day, to make sure that I gave the proper preparations and goodbye to my daughter, to make sure that my nails and toes were perfect….but I was also scared. And pardon my French, but I was scared shitless. I remembered the scary parts of my first C-Section: The Spinal and the feeling of not being able to breathe; the kind anesthesiologist who put a wet sponge to my parched lips; and then the whole BABY thing. The idea of another baby terrified me. And I teach babies. I love babies. I am kind of a baby expert. But I was so scared about how to expand our little tribe. We had things down over here, and I worried, every minute, about going through surgery, surviving surgery, and then surviving parenthood. I grew increasingly nervous as the date approached, talking to my husband, parents, friends and OB. He would refer to the scheduled C date as a “birthday party” and I looked at it as a day of dread. It is hard for me to admit this (especially in hindsight) but I was just terrified. And all of my trips to labor and delivery did nothing to assuage my fears. Four times I said “Bye Bye” to my little girl, saying “We may be going to meet your brother!” and then having to waddle on out hours later with a closed cervix and tons of embarrassment. And pain. And contractions. And, in one case, sleepy baby. And then, at 4 am on the morning of October 24, I awoke out of a dead sleep in pain. Real, can’t really breathe, stomach-tightening pressure and pain. It was so painful that I woke up my husband. I was 38.5 weeks pregnant. My C-Section was scheduled for the following Monday. And so, I said to myself, “Self. You are NOT going in again for a false alarm. You are not. If this means that you are having this giant transverse baby at home in your bathtub so be it.” I even went as far as to pack my daughter’s lunch note reading “Four days until you meet your baby brother!” I gave her a regular kiss goodbye. “See you after school!” I said. But by 10 am when the contractions were becoming more painful and regular, I called my OB. And he asked me if these contractions felt different. And they did. And he told me I had to come in. “It may be party time!” He said. My nails were chipped, my hair was dirty and I had not said goodbye to my daughter. It could not be time. But the contractions were hurting so badly that I was almost in tears. So off to the hospital I went…To be continued…(and trust me, it gets a lot better…)